Inside the Trunks
by happyassbutt
Summary: What if Amy's trunk wasn't empty? It's not a life-changing piece, but it's not bad.


By: Kiralee Smith

Based on: Across the Universe

Copyright: Beth Revis

_This is my first fanfic and I hope you like it. This is my fravorate book, the best I think I've ever read. I hope you enjoy! I don't own rights to any of this, sadly all credit goes to Beth Revis._

_**Amy**_

"Last trunk," Elder says, pushing it toward me as I close Daddy's trunk.

I take a deep breath. I squeeze Amber.

Letting the breath out slowly I open the large trunk. I expect it to be empty since Daddy didn't think I would go with them. The preservation gas surrounds my face when the airlock brakes and is sucked into my lungs, but this time I have no trouble telling it apart from the perfume my mom once wore. I cough at the staleness, once again remembering that I won't taste fresh air until I'm older than my parents are.

A surprise hits me when my eyes focus on the inside of the trunk. It's packed. A couple items of cloths lie on the bottom, but it's mostly filled with the things I am glad weren't left behind. I pick up a pile of old photographs that lie neatly inside a plastic zip-lock bag. Inside are pictures, mostly of me and my friends. A couple I'd taken. A few from my last day on Earth. Some of Jason and me.

I draw a jagged breath when I see his smile: A smile that will melt your knees into piles of Jell-O and stop your words forming against your will. I put it to the back of the pile, failing to hide my disappointment. Elder kneels down beside me, his hand gently rests on my back. I look up and smile at him before moving on to something else.

After digging around, I find my old MP3 player: An out-of-date piece of junk that can't hold more than the one hundred and fifty songs I'd put inside. "What's that?" Harley asks after regarding it from a distance.

I smile and hand it to him. He takes it reluctantly. I almost break out laughing at the fact that their technology consists of a piece of plastic without batteries, though, when face-to-face with something from Earth that's centuries before their time, they're clueless. "It's called an MP3 player. It basically just plays music," I tell him simply.

Elder reaches in and takes something else out of my trunk. After a moment of inspecting it, he looks up at me as if apologizing. "Sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to-"

"It's okay," I tell him before he can finish. He flashes a smile before turning his brown eyes back to the unknown device in his hands. "It's my camera," I tell him. It's big and black, with a retro look to it. Though it looks old, it's a pretty powerful. Daddy got it for me one year for my birthday, after I'd told him I joined the yearbook staff. In its memory is mostly just a punch of photos from my school, some of my friends, some of the students in the hallways at lunch.

A loud noise snaps me out of my memories. Harley has pushed something he shouldn't have, making music blare out of the small speakers built into the device. He drops the MP3 to the ground out of shock. I smile at him, leaning over to pick up what he dropped. I simply push a button to stop the music playing and hand it back to Harley. He flashes a smile at me and I giggle in return.

"What's this?" Elder asks, sticking the screen of the camera into my face like a little kid does to his mother. I lean back and let my eyes adjust. On the screen is a sunset. Jason and I stand in front of it, his arm draped around my hip. Because of the light behind us, we're just dark silhouettes against a sky of red, orange and pink.

"That was taken only a few days before I was frozen," I tell him. "That was taken just before it got dark."

"That's silly," Elder argues. "It's either dark or it's not"

"Not on Earth," I tell him. I can see a faint sparkle in his eyes, like the one he had when he saw me smile. I grab the camera off of him and slide backwards onto my bottom. I point the camera lends at him and say, "smile!"

"Photography's not allowed on _Godspeed_, you know," Elder informs me.

"Yeah, the doctor told me," I say, readying the camera.

Elder just laughs and smiles. A burst of light comes through the flash and Elder's eyes grow wide with surprise. I laugh, happy that I had just gotten a copy of it saved in my camera forever.

More music plays, this time at a good volume. I recognize it as a Christmas song, a boy band version of 'Deck the Halls'. Harley looks up, proud of himself that he's gotten the strange machine working the way he wanted it to. He hands it to me and I take it, silently mouthing the words to the classic with the new-age beat.

_**Elder**_

Amy places the MP3 player on the floor by her and digs through her trunk, still holding her stuffed animal to her chest. I take a glance at her pile of stationary, hoping to figure out what she decided to take with her. Out of the corner of my eye, I see bottles of lightly colored liquid rest in a clear bag. Amy sees what I'm looking at and takes it out.

One of the bottles is handed to me and I reach out to hold it. The glass is cold to the touch, but not as cold as Amy's box was when I'd first seen her. The liquid inside is green, a darker shade than Amy's eyes are. I look to her, still confused.

"Nail polish," Amy explains. "Women use it to paint their nails pretty colors."

"Why would they?" I ask.

Amy just shrugs. "Because it looks nice I guess."

I still don't see the logic, and I'm sure Amy can see it in my eyes. She pick up another vile and opens it. A small brush attached to the lid is then dragged across her thumbnail. She does this a couple more times before her nail is completely covered in crimson paint.

When the smell hits me I blink stupidly for a bit. "Smells horrible, I know," Amy says. "But it's worth it," she continues. She thrusts her thumb into the air, showing me the color. I still don't see the point, but I don't want to argue with her. Instead, I smile.

Amy then sighs. She switches the music off and loads the player back into her trunk, keeping only the camera and her small pile.

Amy hugs her stuffed animal and picks up the notebook, pencils, book, photograph and camera she's selected from her and her parents' boxes. "I'm done here," she says in a hollow voice.

I'm confused at why she doesn't take whole trunk with her, seeing as it's all hers. She'd left all but one photograph, including the one with the other guy – which I'm secretly glad about.

Harley helps me load the trunks back into the locker. He keeps shooting me these looks and waggling his eyebrows at Amy, but I have no idea what he means by it.

Amy wipes her thumb on her basic brown tunic, clearing as much as the paint as she can. When she's done, a thin layer of pink covers the nail.

_Click. Whoosh. Thud…_


End file.
